Revisiting ‘Consumer Needs’ in Marketing: A critical theory Perspective

Abstract

The discipline of marketing needs to critically engage itself in a self-reflexive interrogation with the objective of challenging the underlying assumptions (ontological and epistemological) and probing into the ideologies of the dominant paradigm. Such an engagement will infuse plurality in the understanding of marketing theory. To achieve this end, the paper draws heavily from the Marxist tradition and the subsequent Frankfurt and Foucauldian school of thought. This paper questions the concept of ‘consumer needs’ which are considered to be the very core of marketing. The profit orientation of marketing and the problem solving managerial focus has been looked through the frames of critical theory.